Google Refuses To Pay French Privacy Fine, Has To Admit Guilt On Google France

Google recently lost a legal dispute in France for failing to tell French citizens exactly what happens to the personal data that Google collects about them. As a result Google were fined a trivial $200,000 for the privacy violation, but as a matter of pride Google refused to pay the fine as they believed paying it would be an acceptance of guilt and this would give them a bad public image in France. Google decided to take it to appeal to try and have the judgement overturned but that appeal was swiftly rejected by a French court according to Engadget. As a consequence Google now legally has to show the above statement on its Google.fr website. The translation reads:

A special branch of the CNIL has fined Google 150,000 euros for breaking the laws of “information technology and liberty.” See the full decision at http://www.cnil.fr/linstitution/missions/sanctionner/Google/

Google can still appeal the fine but the judgement will remain valid, in France at least. Google’s main tactic of defence in this case was to create a rift between EU and French law because Google’s privacy policy does meet EU requirements but not French requirements.

Image courtesy of Engadget